As the Altador Cup approaches, many Neopians have been wondering if there would be any changes to the format. Last year, the number of games required to reach All Star status were reduced to create a less time-consuming event.

In this weeks editorial, TNT hints that some additional changes may be coming:

Should we be expecting any massive changes with the format of the Altador Cup this year or are we going to be put in the same system again?
Hm, well I can't reveal too many of our secrets...however, the are talks. I'm not sure exactly whats going on, but there are rumblings from the Altador Cup crew. I guess we're all just gonna have to wait and see....

What changes are you hoping for in this year's Cup? Let us know in the comments!

Final Prize Collection: As a reminder, you have until May 12th (1 week from now) to redeem your points for Altador Cup XI prizes and Staff Tournament prizes as well. We'll post an additional reminder closer to the deadline.

The Altador Cup page has now updated with this year's pre-tournament press blurbs! Over the coming days, sections will be added for each of the teams - starting with Kiko Lake, Mystery Island, and Tyrannia. This also reveals that this year's signups will be starting around 10:00 am NST on Thursday 25th of May. Although the background images for all of these team previews are now up, they do not appear to show any team roster changes so far.

New NC Mall collectibles have been added for these three teams:

The unreleased collectibles for some of the other teams will be:

The Altador Cup FAQ has also been updated, revealing that the Cup will begin on Thursday, June 1st, and sign ups will close on Tuesday, June 6th. The Cup itself will end July 1st - it is heavily implied there will be format changes this year!

Signups for the Altador Cup are now live! You will have until June 6th to sign up for your favourite team. Live play begins on June 1st (a week today).

For returning players, you'll receive one of the yearly bonuses. For players that have taken part in 11 previous Cups, the new bonus is a collectible scarab:

Format Changes
With the signups comes an updated rules page. This reveals that there are format changes this year. The Cup will begin with the much asked for Single Round Robin, in which all teams will play each other once. It will then be followed by a finals bracket in a similar fashion to the more recent brackets format to determine final standings. It is unclear at this stage if the Round Robin will continue to use numerical scoring.